Final Paper

docx

School

New Jersey Institute Of Technology *

*We aren’t endorsed by this school

Course

320

Subject

Law

Date

Jan 9, 2024

Type

docx

Pages

Uploaded by DoctorFlowerArmadillo43

Case: Kansas v. Glover (2022) Issue: In the case of Kansas v. Glover (2022) the case is against my client who is the defendant in the matter Mr. Charles Glover Jr. The case of Kansas v. Glover (2020) revolves around the question of whether a police officer can stop a vehicle based solely on the registered owner's license status being suspended. I will argue that the stop was unlawful and Mr. Glover's Fourth Amendment rights were violated. The police officer that conducted the stop assumed that Mr. Glover was the owner and driver of the vehicle, and it was later confirmed that Mr. Glover indeed have a suspended license. Introduction: The case of Kansas v. Glover (2020) involved a traffic stop initiated by a State of Kansas police officer who ran a license plate check and discovered that the registered owner had a revoked license. Without investigating whether the driver was indeed the registered owner, the officer pulled Mr. Glover’s vehicle over and found Mr. Glover behind the wheel. He was subsequently arrested and later charged with driving with a revoked license. The case was brought to the Supreme Court, as Mr. Glover argued that the officer lacked reasonable suspicion to stop him without confirming his identity first. After the detention of Mr. Glover, had requested for evidence to be suppressed and the district court granted his request. This decision of the District Court was later overturned in the Court of Appeals “it was reasonable for [Deputy] Mehrer to infer that the driver was the owner of the vehicle” because “there were specific and articulable facts from which the officer’s

common-sense inference gave rise to a reasonable suspicion.” 54 Kan. App. 2d 377, 385, 400 P. 3d 182, 188 (2017).” (Kansas v. Glover 589 U.S., 2020). Later on the Kansas State Supreme Court reversed the judgement of the Court of Appeals as stated “According to the court, Deputy Mehrer did not have reasonable suspicion because his inference that Glover was behind the wheel amounted to “only a hunch” that Glover was engaging in criminal activity. 308 Kan. 590, 591, 422 P. 3d 64, 66 (2018). The court further explained that Deputy Mehrer’s “hunch” involved “applying and stacking unstated assumptions that are unreasonable without further factual basis,” namely, that “the registered owner was likely the primary driver of the vehicle” and that “the owner will likely disregard the suspension or revocation order and continue to drive.” Id., at 595–597, 422 P. 3d, at 68–70. We granted Kansas’ petition for a writ of certiorari, 587 U. S. ___ (2019), and now reverse.” (Kansas v. Glover 589 U.S., 2020) After this the case was taken to the Supreme Court of the United States, Justice Thomas delivered the opinion of the court and Justices Roberts, C. J., and Ginsburg, Breyer, Alito, Kagan, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh, JJ., concurred, and Justice Sotomayor was the dissenting opinion. The defense for Mr. Glover is that the stop and detention of Mr. Glover's vehicle violated his Fourth Amendment rights. The issue is whether the police officer had reasonable suspicion to believe that Mr. Glover was the registered owner of the vehicle and that he was driving with a suspended license. According to the law, a stop and detention must be justified by specific, articulable evidence that, when considered with logical deductions, supports the reasonableness of the suspicion. The forthcoming analysis will show that the police officer lacked reasonable suspicion and thus violated Mr. Glover's Fourth Amendment rights.

The outcome of the Kansas v. Glover case was not justified based on the evidence presented. The Supreme Court’s ruling only affects those individuals with warrants for their arrest, not every driver. Mr. Glover was stopped without probable cause, which violated his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure, as there was no reasonable suspicion to believe he was the owner of the vehicle. The totality of the circumstances in this case does not show reasonable suspicion and the lower court's decision to suppress the evidence should be upheld. Rule: If a registered owner's name appears in a government database as having a suspended license, can a police officer stop a vehicle merely based on that information? That is the question at hand in Kansas v. Glover (2020). The defendant, Mr. Glover, argues that this violates his Fourth Amendment rights to prevent unreasonable searches and seizures. The Kansas Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Mr. Glover, but the Kansas Supreme Court reversed the decision, stating that the stop was justified because the officer had a common-sense suspicion that the driver was the registered owner with a suspended license. The issue is whether this suspicion was sufficient to justify the traffic stop. The "stop and frisk" theory was created by the Supreme Court in Terry v. Ohio (1968), which permits police officers to temporarily detain and pat down someone if they have a good reason to believe they are engaged in illegal conduct. The Court has made it abundantly apparent that this is a low bar, and officers must have more than a hunch or an "immature and unparticularized suspicion or 'hunch'" to support a stop. When an officer has precise, articulable facts that, when considered with logical conclusions drawn from them, warrant the intrusion,

Your preview ends here

Eager to read complete document? Join bartleby learn and gain access to the full version

Access to all documents
Unlimited textbook solutions
24/7 expert homework help

they are considered to be reasonable suspicion. Arvizu v. United States, 534 U.S. 266, 273 (2002). According to the Supreme Court, a traffic stop qualifies as a seizure under the Fourth Amendment and requires a valid reason. A two-part test for determining whether there is reasonable suspicion was established by the Court in United States v. Cortez (1981): "The police officer must be able to point to specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant that intrusion." Without having the proper justification to conduct the search is in fact the violation of Mr. Glover’s 4 th Amendment rights. In Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648 (1979), the Supreme Court addressed a related problem, holding that a police officer cannot arbitrarily stop a car without specific and articulable facts suggesting that the driver has broken a traffic statute or committed another crime. The Court ruled that to prevent the arbitrary or discriminatory use of that discretion, "the police's discretion in making traffic stops must be limited by clear and objective standards." The Supreme Court has ruled in numerous earlier decisions that a traffic stop justified by a hunch or a stereotype is inadmissible. Below are a handful of them: Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 124 (2000) (finding that "headlong flight" from police, without more, does not constitute reasonable suspicion); United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 7 (1989) (holding that "an officer's reliance on a mere hunch is insufficient to justify a stop"). The significance of the issue in terms of Fourth Amendment rights and law enforcement practices is substantial. The Fourth Amendment guarantees that citizens have the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. When law enforcement officers have reasonable

suspicion or probable cause to believe that a person has committed a crime, they may stop and detain that individual. However, if the justification for the stop is solely based on someone's ownership of a vehicle that matches the description of a suspect's vehicle, without any corroborating information or suspicion of wrongdoing, it is a violation of Fourth Amendment rights. Such a practice may also lead to racial profiling and discriminatory policing, which is antithetical to the principles of justice and equality in the United States. In conclusion, Mr. Glover's Fourth Amendment rights were violated when he was stopped by Officer Mehrer solely based on the owner of the vehicle's license suspension status. The stop was not supported by reasonable suspicion or probable cause, as required by the Fourth Amendment. Furthermore, the state's argument that Officer Mehrer's error was "reasonable" because he acted in good faith ignores the legal requirement that the officer's mistake must be objectively reasonable. The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution was violated by the decision made by the Kansas Court of Appeals in the case of Kansas v. Glover (2020). The actions of the cops were a breach of Mr. Glover's reasonable expectation of privacy in his car. Without a solid reason to believe Mr. Glover was involved in any wrongdoing, the officers made an irrational seizure. As a result, the exclusionary rule should be used to suppress the state's evidence gathered during the stop. This incident serves as a reminder that before stopping and detaining a person, authorities must have a good reason to assume that they are involved in illegal conduct. Analysis: To evaluate whether the police officer's conduct was lawful in this situation, it is necessary to weigh the available information and apply pertinent legal precedent. The crucial question is whether the traffic stop was lawful since the officer had a good ground to suspect that

Mr. Glover was operating a vehicle without a valid license. The Supreme Court has ruled that if an officer has a reasonable suspicion, supported by concrete and articulable facts, that the driver has broken a traffic law, they may make a traffic stop. In this case, the officer's sight of Mr. Glover's car and license plate may have given rise to a legitimate concern, but more investigation is required to decide if the officer acted appropriately. Mr. Glover is arguing that the officer in this instance lacked sufficient grounds for the traffic stop. A police officer must have precise and articulable information to have a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. The officer in this case merely relied on the information that the registered owner of the car had a suspended license. Before making the stop, the officer did not obtain any further information or notice any unusual conduct on the part of the driver. As a result, it is possible to argue that the officer did not have sufficient grounds to stop traffic, and that any evidence gathered because of the stop should be suppressed. When the case's facts are examined, it becomes clear that the officer's choice to start a traffic stop was not justified. The only infraction committed by Mr. Glover was possessing a license that had been revoked, which is not a crime that qualifies for a Fourth Amendment traffic stop. Neither did the police have any solid information connecting Mr. Glover to criminal activity nor did the officer see any other suspicious behavior or traffic violations that might have justified a stop. As a result, the officer's decision to conduct a traffic stop was not supported by enough legal evidence based on the case's facts. The case's facts unequivocally show that Mr. Glover was unaware that his driver's license had been suspended, defying any prospective counterarguments that the prosecution might use. The Fourth Amendment's reasonableness standard, which mandates that officials have a

Your preview ends here

Eager to read complete document? Join bartleby learn and gain access to the full version

Access to all documents
Unlimited textbook solutions
24/7 expert homework help

reasonable suspicion based on specific and articulable facts that a person is engaging in criminal conduct, also applies to Terry stops, as the Supreme Court has held in prior cases. The stop was unreasonable because Mr. Glover was not involved in any criminal conduct. Any efforts by the prosecution to assert otherwise are thus baseless. It is clear that when it comes to Mr. Glover, the State of Kansas has fallen short of the standard needed to establish a reasonable suspicion. It is evident from the analysis of Kansas v. Glover (2020) that the officer's choice to do a license plate check and initiate a traffic stop was not justified by the circumstances. The officer failed to establish a reasonable basis for suspicion, which underscores the fact that the ownership of the car alone should not be the basis for this degree of investigation. As a result, the charges against Mr. Glover should be dropped and the evidence should be suppressed. Conclusion: An important legal question regarding the breadth of police authority to halt a vehicle purely based on the registered owner's license status is raised in the case of Kansas v. Glover (2020). According to the argument, the police officer's stop of Mr. Glover's vehicle in violation of the Fourth Amendment occurred because the officer lacked sufficient grounds to suspect that Mr. Glover was operating a vehicle with a suspended license. Thus, the evidence gathered during the stop should be suppressed and the court should decide in Mr. Glover's favor. The Kansas v. Glover case emphasizes the significance of Fourth Amendment rights protection. The Supreme Court's decision in this case, which supported warrantless searches of people suspected of driving while their licenses were suspended, established a troubling

precedent that could empower police enforcement to conduct arbitrary warrantless searches. Readers should fund advocacy organizations working to uphold and defend Fourth Amendment rights in upcoming trials to stop further erosion of these rights. People can get in touch with their political officials to express their worries about unwarranted searches and the loss of Fourth Amendment rights. Together, we can make sure that overzealous law enforcement operations do not compromise the safeguards guaranteed in the Fourth Amendment. The officer in question plainly violated Mr. Glover's Fourth Amendment rights. The officer didn't have sufficient grounds to stop the car and believed Mr. Glover was the rightful owner of it. Additionally, the stop was initiated out of pure suspicion rather than for a traffic infraction. Everything that came after that was therefore polluted. Rodriguez v. United States (2015) established a precedent that the stop was unreasonable and that any evidence acquired cannot be utilized in court. Therefore, Mr. Glover's case ought to be thrown out and he ought to be let go of detention. Bibliography

Coble, D. (2020, April 6). Big SCOTUS Fourth Amendment Case: Kansas v. Glover. Retrieved from Newstex Blogs Everyday Evidence Legal Blog: https://advance-lexis-com.libdb.njit.edu:8443/api/document? collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:5YKT-K2K1-F03R-N2VN-00000-00&context=1516831. Delaware v. Prouse 440 U.S. 648 (Supreme Court of United States March 27, 1979). Fourth Amendment-Search and Seizure-Reasonable Suspicion-Kansas v. Glover (2020). (2020). Harvard Law Review , 500-509. Kansas v. Glover 589 U.S., 18-556 (Supreme Court of United States April 6, 2020). Rodgers, H. J. (n.d.). Terry, Traffic stops, and Tragedy: Conflicts and Concerns in the Wake of Kansas v. Glover . Retrieved from Nexis Uni: . https://advance-lexis-com.libdb.njit.edu:8443/api/document?collection=analytical- materials&id=urn:contentItem:624R-WWN1-FCK4-G3JM-00000-00&context=1516831 Terry v. Ohio 392 U.S. (Supreme Court of United States June 10, 1968). U.S. v. Cortez 449 U.S.411 (Supreme Court of United States January 21, 1981). Virginia Lawyers Weekly. (2021, June 28). Reasonable, articulable suspicion for vehicle stop . Retrieved from Opinion Digest: . https://advance-lexis-com.libdb.njit.edu:8443/api/document? collection=analytical-materials&id=urn:contentItem:624R-WWN1-FCK4-G3JM-00000- 00&context=1516831

Your preview ends here

Eager to read complete document? Join bartleby learn and gain access to the full version

Access to all documents
Unlimited textbook solutions
24/7 expert homework help

Final Paper

Related Documents